Handbook for Soul Winners, by Leroy Gager

Title: Handbook for Soul Winners

Author: Leroy Gager

Genre(s): Christian Nonfiction

Romance Content: N/A

Recommended age range: 15+ with discernment and/or parental supervision

My Rating:  ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  (four stars)

My Review:

Note: This is quite an old book and is currently hard to find for sale.

I mentioned this book in a post last November (wow, it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago!) as well as in comments on others’ blogs, and I’m finally getting around to reviewing it! When I wrote the post in November, I had not read this entire book… and guess what? I still haven’t! You see, when our church’s Ladies’ Bible Study decided to study this book, I ended up reading most of it at the rate we studied it. We have now read almost all through Sections One-Four, and only have Section Five (The Problem of Heresies) left. However, we are now taking a break for the summer, and I thought I should review the book while my memory is better about the rest of the book.

This book has many excellent points and tips on soul winning! I especially appreciate the chapter on Scripture memorization. Mr. Gager even has a list of many verses to memorize as well as categories for each one. It included verses that would probably be familiar to many people who often attend church as well as some that aren’t as familiar, but are important to know just the same!

As I mentioned in my previous “mini review”, this book uses many King James verses, but some references are marked “R. V.” (which I have discovered is short for Revised Version, translated by Westcott and Hort, among others… thus, I DO NOT recommend the R. V., for Westcott and Hort were not good men.). I also found that some of the verses in my copy were not typed out correctly, with some words changed from what the Bible really says.

While studying this book, our Ladies’ Bible Study discovered that we don’t agree with everything in it. In some cases, we were unsure of whether a section was worded oddly so that we weren’t understanding it correctly, or if we don’t agree with it. For example, Mr. Gager seems to believe in “Lordship salvation”. Some of the study questions are also worded strangely, making them hard to understand. This is a good example of the need to exercise critical thinking and discernment even when reading the works of Christian authors!

Lord willing, if/when I read the final section of this book, I will update my review (and potentially let my readers know that I have updated it). Until then, I’m giving this book four stars. While it has many helpful points, some parts are confusing or wrong. I would recommend it to discerning readers!

Update on March 26, 2022: Our ladies’ Bible study finished going through this book. As we studied the cults discussed in the last section of the book, some of us also referenced other books to learn more about the cults. One thing that we noticed was that some of the information was out of date. Cults’ views are subject to change over the years, and some of what we read in other books didn’t agree with Handbook for Soul Winners. The last chapter, which discussed Roman Catholicism, was written by a former Roman Catholic who is now saved. Some of the same concerns about the rest of the book were true for this section as well.